SinoDefence Forum

AssassinsMace

What's all the hub-bub about? I thought the joke was that the US Navy stalks Chinese subs and ships easily because they're so noisy. US stalks... China stalks... What's the big deal?

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China sub secretly stalked U.S. fleet

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 13, 2006

A Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times has learned.
The surprise encounter highlights China's continuing efforts to prepare for a future conflict with the U.S., despite Pentagon efforts to try to boost relations with Beijing's communist-ruled military.
The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying warships also is an embarrassment to the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China aimed at improving relations between the two nations' militaries.
Disclosure of the incident comes as Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, is making his first visit to China. The four-star admiral was scheduled to meet senior Chinese military leaders during the weeklong visit, which began over the weekend.
According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.
The surfaced submarine was spotted by a routine surveillance flight by one of the carrier group's planes. The Kitty Hawk battle group includes an attack submarine and anti-submarine helicopters that are charged with protecting the warships from submarine attack.
According to the officials, the submarine is equipped with Russian-made wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Kitty Hawk and several other warships were deployed in ocean waters near Okinawa at the time, as part of a routine fall deployment program. The officials said Chinese submarines rarely have operated in deep water far from Chinese shores or shadowed U.S. vessels.
A Pacific Command spokesman declined to comment on the incident, saying details were classified.
Pentagon spokesmen also declined to comment.
The incident is a setback for the aggressive U.S.-China military exchange program being promoted by Adm. Fallon, who has made several visits to China in recent months in an attempt to develop closer ties.
However, critics of the program in the Pentagon say China has not reciprocated and continues to deny U.S. military visitors access to key facilities, including a Beijing command center. In contrast, Chinese military visitors have been invited to military exercises and sensitive U.S. facilities.
Additionally, military intelligence officials said Adm. Fallon has restricted U.S. intelligence-gathering activities against China, fearing that disclosure of the activities would upset relations with Beijing.
The restrictions are hindering efforts to know more about China's military buildup, the officials said.
"This is a harbinger of a stronger Chinese reaction to America's military presence in East Asia," said Richard Fisher, a Chinese military specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, who called the submarine incident alarming.
"Given the long range of new Chinese sub-launched anti-ship missiles and those purchased from Russia, this incident is very serious," he said. "It will likely happen again, only because Chinese submarine captains of 40 to 50 new modern submarines entering their navy will want to test their mettle against the 7th Fleet."
Pentagon intelligence officials say China's military buildup in recent years has produced large numbers of submarines and surface ships, seeking to control larger portions of international waters in Asia, a move U.S. officials fear could restrict the flow of oil from the Middle East to Asia in the future.
Between 2002 and last year, China built 14 new submarines, including new Song-class vessels and several other types, both diesel- and nuclear-powered.
Since 1996, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in a show of force, Beijing also has bought and built weapons designed specifically to attack U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships.
"The Chinese have made it clear that they understand the importance of the submarine in any kind of offensive or defensive strategy to deal with a military conflict," an intelligence official said recently.
In late 2004, China dispatched a Han-class submarine to waters near Guam, Taiwan and Japan. Japan's military went on emergency alert after the submarine surfaced in Japanese waters. Beijing apologized for the incursion.
The Pentagon's latest annual report on Chinese military power stated that China is investing heavily in weapons designed "to interdict, at long ranges, aircraft carrier and expeditionary strike groups that might deploy to the western Pacific."
It could not be learned whether the U.S. government lodged a protest with China's government over the incident or otherwise raised the matter in official channels.

Mr_C

If this is true, the Song must be capable submarine with a capable crew. And the Americans who detected them were just as capable. Anyway i am sure this type of thing happens often. And to the military person... its not that suprising. Only suprising to some politician and people who want to make a big deal about it.
From memory, the Song carries anti ship missles with a range of more than 100km. If this true do u think the captain of the Song will risk getting so close to the CVBG in real combat. What do u think?

Vlad Plasmius

This is no big deal. These kinds of "incidents" happen a lot in different places with different countries. This is the equivalent of using your fighter to outmanuever and get missile lock on another country's fighter. I'm going with Chinese sub commanders wanting to test themselves against live bait.

It's the best kind of testing possible.

Gollevainen

Two interesting points can be made of this:

1. The threat of SSKs posses to US carriers had yet another proof. There have been dozens of incidents were friendly SSKs have managed to "sink" USN carriers in realistic wargame simulations. (in those where the opponent subs are allowed to work freely without the restrains of "rules" eg. showing exactly how good the boats are) This has caused already quite big alarm in US officals (for example the hiring of swedish sub to help americans in ASW training). Situations like this one above will make the americans taking the threat of SSKs even more seriously than earlier, as it seems that even the "average enemy" subs can do what the Song did. Just makes you wonder what the even more sophisticated Kilo's and Yuans could do...

2. PLAN getting more confidence and bold. It's speaks aobut the fact that have been seen for years now...PLAN is comming! The transforming to bluewater navy have already started and like with soviets decades ago, it will show first at increasing number of these sort of incidences.

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Kilo636

I think the present Song Type 39A is even more quiet than Kilo.... with seven skewd blade and anti-sonar tiles. It looks hard to detect.

bd popeye

Intresting indeed. Well all we can do is speculate because none of us where there...

It's somewhat difficut to believe a Song clas was that far out to sea. But I do not doubt the incident did happen. I also doubt that the USN will give a full accounting of the incident to the public.

Defense officals..jeez..They are civillian mouthpieces that work for the DoD that let certian knowledge "slip" to keep the media happy and neo-cons even happier. The Dod doesn't want the real story to slip out so they just give tid-bits to water the mouths of the media.


Very true. My kudos to the PLAN.

The USN had better step up it's ASW training with SSK's.

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RedMercury

Two ideas:
1) If the carrier battle group was in transit, it would've been difficult for an SSK to keep up. So was the Kitty Hawk doing training things in the area?

2) Did the Song captain have outside sources of intell to direct him to the battle group? In the open ocean, it would be difficult to find even something as big as a carrier battle group.

bd popeye

I can answer the first question. The Kitty Hawk was probally conducting some flight operations in the area where the PLAN sub found them. Anytime you need to know what the Kitty Hawk is up to just go to http://www.navy.mil/. They get more coverage than any other ship in the USN.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/gonavy604.html
As for question #2 ..Who knows??..Could be intelligence or just pure luck. Or they read http://www.navy.mil/...

Once again my kudos to the PLAN.

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zraver

I smell a set up, I think some admiral is manipulating events in order to secure funding with a red scare. This is a classic manuver in the US Military, most recently with the COPE India dogfights to get more funding for the F-22 Raptor.

Kilo636

I bet is a wrong time to get funding. With the democrat in house,the first thing they will do is to cut down military expenditure to keep US debt from further rising. Unless US can get out of Iraq quickly,or else US military wil be hard on fund...

zraver

Not with Chinese subs poppin gup in the "middle" of our carrier battle groups. Combined with the recent crash of a PRC plane that was working on advanced directed energy weapons that disable US missiles, production of the worlds most manuverable dogfighters and new tanks etc etc.

When uisng the Red Scare tactic to ge tfunding inflate the enemies capabilites and down grade your own so that congress wets itself and cuts a check. The Reds got the Bomb (1948 Truman president begins massive re-armament), the Reds are gonna invade Europe ( JFK moving nukes to Turkey), if Vietnam falls so does the rest of Asia (JFK/LBJ), Russian fighters are better than ours (COPE India), Chinese Subs can sink our carriers etc etc etc


Welcome to the Cold War, round two

mobydog

Not really.. diesel subs can transit and operate thousands of miles away from base... look at the germans subs during WWII.

Base on this, I have always wondered.. who started the myth or perception that diesel subs cannot/don't operate in distant blue seas... promoting fundings for more nuclear subs no doubt.

Just a thought...

bd popeye

I'm well aware of that. I do know history. Being 53 years old I've lived quite a bit of history. .. However an SSK is designed to operate in littoral waters. That's why I posted the statement I did.

When the Swedish sub was sent to San Diego it was sent on a transport ship.

http://www.news.navy.mil/search/disp...story_id=18984

San Diego, Ca. (June 27, 2005) – The Swedish diesel-powered attack submarine HMS Gotland arrives in San Diego on a transport ship from Sweden. Gotland will begin a one-year bilateral training effort with the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare forces in July. (see picture below)

I think it has to do with there limited speed and indurance when operating submerged on batteries. But honestly that is a great question.

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FuManChu

Isn't there the issue that the USN wouldn't be on "full ASW alert" and moving more slowly, given that it's peace-time at the moment? What happened in this case wouldn't be the same sort of challenge if the US was at war/on a war footing. I think Mercury touched upon the second point.

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Seacraft

Few subs can "keep up" with a transitting CBG. Those few are probably Seawolf and Virgina, and maybe Russia's latest nuke attack boat. All others will make noise. If the CBG is really moving, they'll all make noise. A diesel Song simply cannot keep up. on diesel or (for long) on batteries. It is unlikely that the Song "shadowed" the carrier.

What is more likely is that a Song somehow, using an external intellignece source, managed to manovoure itself in the path of the CBG and let screen ships waltz right in.

If you look at the timelines placed by Popeye's link and assuming those "dates" and the date in the article then the battle group may have been transiting between Taiwan and the P.I.

Lots of skinny water, reefs, humps, underwater mountains to hide around. PLant a line of 10 PRC SSKs in there when the PRC probably knows where the CBG will be, one or two of these subs will get lucky...

None of this sounds like a blue water operation but cases where we have always assumed PRC might a achieve best case advantage when compared to US Navy (assuming article is true)